Military hostilities against insurgents may result in
Christian casualties and persecution.

By Vishal Arora

CHIANG MAI, Thailand, October 22 (Compass
Direct News) � With Burma�s first election in over 20 years just three weeks
away, Christians in ethnic minority states fear that afterward the military
regime will try to �cleanse� the areas of Christianity, sources said. The
Burmese junta is showing restraint to woo voters in favor of its proxy party,
the Union Solidarity and Development Party, but it is expected to launch a
military offensive on insurgents in ethnic minority states after the
Nov. 7 election, Burma watchers warned. When Burma Army personnel
attack, they do not discriminate between insurgents and unarmed residents, said
a representative of the pro-democracy Free Burma Rangers relief aid group in
Chiang Mai, close to the Thai-Burma border. The military seems to be preparing
its air force for an offensive, said Aung Zaw, editor of the Chiang Mai-based
magazine Irrawaddy, which covers Burma. The FBR source said there are many
unarmed Christian residents in zones where Burmese military personnel attack and
kill anyone on sight. At least four years ago a secret memo circulated in Karen
state, �Program to Destroy the Christian Religion in Burma,� that carried �point
by point instructions on how to drive Christians out of the state,� reported the
British daily Telegraph in 2007. The junta perceives all Christians in ethnic
minority states as insurgents, according to the FBR. Three months ago, Burma
Army�s Light Infantry Battalions 370 and 361 attacked a Christian village in
Karen state, the FBR source said. In Tha Dah Der village on July 23, army
personnel burned all houses, one of the state�s biggest churches � which was
also a school � and all livestock and cattle, reported FBR. More than 900 people
fled to save their lives.

With possibility of secession by Southern Sudan, church
leaders in north fear more land grabs.

By Simba Tian

NAIROBI, Kenya, October 25 (Compass Direct
News) � Police in Sudan evicted the staff of a Presbyterian church from its
events and office site in Khartoum earlier this month, aiding a Muslim
businessman�s effort to seize the property. Christians in Sudan�s capital city
told Compass that police entered the compound of the Sudan Presbyterian
Evangelical Church (SPEC) on Oct. 4 at around 2 p.m. and
ordered workers to leave, claiming that the land belonged to Muslim businessman
Osman al Tayeb. The church had signed a contract with al Tayeb stipulating the
terms under which he could attain the property � including providing legal
documents such as a construction permit and then obtaining final approval from
SPEC � but those terms remained unmet, church officials said. Church leader Deng
Bol said that under terms of the unfulfilled contract, the SPEC would turn the
property over to al Tayeb to construct a business center on the site, with the
denomination to receive a share of the returns from the commercial enterprise
and regain ownership of the property after 80 years. SPEC leaders had yet to
approve the project because of the high risk of permanently losing the property,
he said, and they have undertaken legal action to recover it. The disputed plot
of 2,232 square meters has been used for Christian rallies and related
activities. The Rev. Philip Akway, general secretary of the SPEC, told Compass
that the government might be annoyed that Christian activities have taken place
there for many decades. SPEC leaders said Muslims have taken over many other
Christian properties through similar ploys. An unnamed elder said church leaders
believe the property grab came in anticipation of the proposed north-south
division of Sudan. With less than three months until a Jan. 9
referendum on splitting the country according to the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement of 2005, SPEC leaders have taken a number of measures to guard against
government interference in church affairs, as many southern Sudanese Christians
fear losing citizenship if south Sudan votes for secession.

Muslim neighbors fabricate attempted murder charge after
beating them for their faith.

Special to Compass Direct News

LOS ANGELES, October 27 (Compass Direct
News) � Muslim neighbors of a Christian family scheduled to be baptized last
month beat them and filed a false charge of attempted murder against them and
other Christians, the head of the family said. Foyez Uddin, 62, told Compass
that his neighbor Nazrul Islam and Islam�s relatives told him, his wife and his
two adult children that as Christians they were �polluting� society and beat
them on Sept. 17 in Joysen village in Rangpur district, some
300 kilometers (186 miles) north of Dhaka. Islam is a policeman. Islam�s uncle,
Abdul Mannan Miah, then filed false charges against Uddin, his family and three
others, accusing them of trying to kill Islam�s sister (Miah�s niece), Uddin
said by telephone after his release on bail on Oct. 8. Uddin said his family was
fishing at his pond on Sept. 17 when eight to 10 Muslim
neighbors led by Islam appeared and began speaking abusively about their
Christian faith. When he declined their proposal to return to Islam, they beat
the Christian family and later vandalized their home, where their Faith Bible
Church of God meets. The pastor of the church, Lavlu Sadik Lebio, told Compass
that he complained to police of the attack, but officers did not respond. Uddin
was arrested for attempted murder the next day, with police filing a report
stating that he collaborated with Christians and made defamatory remarks about
Islam, he said. The case file states that Uddin�s family and other companions
attempted to kill the sister of officer Islam, Jahanara Begum. Uddin said the
charge was fabricated on the basis of Begum bleeding from a lanced boil, and
that all the accused have witnesses that can testify that they were not even
present at the site of the alleged attempted murder. The accused include two
recent converts who live 500 kilometers (310 miles) away, driven from the area
because Muslims refused to give them work, he said.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, October 29 (Compass
Direct News) � A Muslim land owner in Pakistan this month subjected a
25-year-old Christian to burns and a series of humiliations, including falsely
charging him with having sex with his own niece, because the Christian refused
to work for him without pay. Fayaz Masih is in jail with burns on his body after
No. 115 Chitraan Wala village head Zafar Iqbal Ghuman and other villagers beat
him, set fire to him and shaved off some of his facial hair on Oct. 3,
said the Rev. Yaqub Masih. The village is located in Nankana Sahib district,
Punjab Province. Sources said neither Fayaz Masih nor his family had taken any
loans from Ghuman, and they had no obligations to work off any debt for Ghuman
as bonded laborers. Ghuman, accustomed to forcing Christians into slavery, and
11 of his men abducted Masih from his home at gun-point and brought him to
Ghuman�s farmhouse, according to Yaqub Masih and former politician Yousaf Gill,
both of nearby No. 118 Chour Muslim village. After the armed men had beaten
Fayaz Masih and rubbed charcoal on his face when he declined a final request to
work in Ghuman�s fields, Ghuman announced that Masih had had relations with
Masih�s 18-year-old niece, Sumeera, and called for everyone in the village to
punish him. Some threw kerosene on Masih and alternately set him on fire and
extinguished the flames, Gill said. Masih�s sister, Seema Bibi, told Compass
that the accusation that Masih had had sex with her daughter Sumeera was utterly
false. She said that Ghuman told her daughter at gun-point to testify against
Masih in court on Oct. 4, but Sumeera said under oath that
Masih was innocent and that Ghuman had tried to force her to testify against her
uncle. A judge ruled that Sumeera had not had illicit relations with Masih, and
that therefore she was free to go home. Her mother told Compass, however, that
since then Ghuman has been issuing daily death threats to her family. In spite
of the court ruling that Masih had not had sex with his niece, police were
coerced into registering a false charge of adultery against him under Article
376 of the Islamic statutes of the Pakistan Penal Code, First Information Report
No. 361/10, at the Sangla Hill police station.

Refusing to recant Christianity, victims are attacked on
rumors of disrespecting Islam.

Special to Compass Direct News

LOS ANGELES, November 2 (Compass Direct
News) � Muslim villagers last month beat a 63-year-old Christian convert and his
youngest son because they refused to return to Islam, the father told Compass.
The next day, another Christian in a nearby village was also beaten and robbed
in related violence in southwestern Bangladesh. Aynal Haque, 63, a volunteer for
Christian organization Way of Life Trust, told Compass that his brothers and
relatives along with Muslim villagers beat him and his son, 22-year-old Lal Miah,
on Oct. 9 when they refused to recant Christianity. The family lives at Sadhu
Hati Panta Para village in Jhenaidah district, some 250 kilometers (155 miles)
southwest of Dhaka. At a meeting to which Haque was summoned on Oct. 9,
about 500 men and women from several villages gathered. �They tried to force us
to be apologetic for our blunder of accepting Christianity and also tried to
compel us to go back to Islam. I told them, �While there is breath left in our
bodies, we will not reject Christianity.� When we denied their allegation and
demand, they beat us severely.� Hearing of the incident in Sadhu Hati Panta
Para, the next day (Oct. 10) Muslims in Kola village about five
kilometers (nearly three miles) away beat a Christian friend of Haque�s and
robbed his seed shop. Tokkel Ali, 40, told Compass that around 20 people arrived
at his shop at about 11 a.m. �A huge crowd overran me and started beating me,
throwing my seeds here and there,� he said. Ali said he lost consciousness, and
the mob scattered his seeds and robbed 24,580 taka along with his bicycle. He
said he has not dared filed any charges. �If I file any case or complain against
them, they will kill me.�

ISTANBUL, November 2 (Compass Direct News) �
Amid questions about lax security, mourners gathered in Iraq today to bury the
victims of Sunday�s (Oct. 31) Islamic extremist assault on a
Syrian Catholic Church in Baghdad, one of the bloodiest attacks on the country�s
dwindling Christian community. Seven or eight Islamic militants stormed into Our
Lady of Salvation church during evening mass after detonating bombs in the
neighborhood, gunning down two policemen at the stock exchange across the
street, and blowing up their own car, according to The Associated Press. More
than 100 people were reportedly attending mass. A militant organization called
the Islamic State of Iraq, which has links to al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, claimed
responsibility for the attack. The militants sprayed the sanctuary with bullets.
�It appears to be a well planned and strategic attack aiming at the church,�
said a local source for ministry organization Open Doors. Iraqi security forces
launched an assault on the church building, and it was unclear how many of the
58 people dead they had killed; the militants reportedly began killing hostages
when the security force assault began. The dead included 12 policemen, three
priests and five bystanders from the car bombing and other blasts outside the
church. The Open Doors source reported that the priests killed were the Rev.
Saad Abdal Tha�ir, the Rev. Waseem Tabeeh and the Rev. Raphael Qatin, with the
latter not succumbing until he had been taken to a hospital. Bishop Georges
Casmoussa told Compass that today Iraqi Christians not only mourned lost
brothers and sisters but were tempted to lose hope. �It�s a personal loss and a
Christian loss,� said Casmoussa. �It�s not just people they kill. They also kill
hope.� Memorials were held today in Baghdad, Mosul and surrounding towns, said
Casmoussa, who attended the funeral of 13 deceased Christians. �At the funeral
there was the Shiite leader, the official spokesperson of the government
ministers,� Casmoussa said. �All the discussion was flippant � �We are with you,
we are all suffering,� etcetera, but we have demanded a serious investigation.
We can�t count on good words anymore. It�s all air. We�ve heard enough.�

ISTANBUL, November 4 (Compass Direct News) �
An unidentified arsonist in Israel set fire to a Jerusalem church building that
has long been a focal point for anti-Christian sentiment in a Jewish
ultra-Orthodox-leaning neighborhood, church officials said. On Friday (Oct.
29) shortly before 1 a.m., someone broke the basement windows of the
Jerusalem Alliance Church Ministry Center and set fire to its bottom floors. An
area resident noticed the fire and called the fire department, which arrived 20
minutes later and found the church basement engulfed in flames. Firefighters
extinguished the blaze, ventilated the smoke and left after inspecting the rest
of the building, said Jack Sara, senior pastor of the church. Smoke and the
noise of the blaze had awakened 10 volunteer workers who were sleeping at the
church�s overnight facilities. The volunteers, who were visiting Israel from the
United States and Denmark, went to a nearby hospital and were treated for smoke
inhalation; they were released several hours later, church leaders said. The
church building sustained approximately $85,000 of smoke and fire damage. The
fire largely gutted the basement and destroyed recent renovations. Sara said he
had difficulty understanding how the arsonist could have carried so much hate;
whoever set the fire had to know people were inside the church, he said. �He not
only intended to burn a room but to kill people,� Sara said. �Whoever did it
intended to kill people.� �

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